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Microsoft issued a critical patch for Internet Explorer today, described as protection against a “remote code execution vulnerability. If your computer is set up for automatic updates, you should get the patch, well, automatically. You should also be able to run Windows Update (under Tools in IE). Or you can get the patch from [link]. MORE

I’m fascinated by the ad for Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial exploratory campaign that’s been showing up on my Facebook page lately. The ad includes a photo of my friend Katie and says that Katie is a fan of Gavin Newsom. Her page confirms that she is a supporter of Gavin. And Katie’s photo appears above Gavin’s in the ad. MORE

In his article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy titled “ Top 10 Threats to Computer Systems Include Professors and Students , Jeffrey Young says. Today a growing number of network bad guys are professional criminals, and they’re looking to steal real money. You can (and should) read the whole article at [link]. MORE

Here are two new resources for surviving in tough times: The Chronicle of Philanthropy has compiled a collection of recent stories , discussions, and statistics about how charities deal with turbulent economic times. read more. MORE

Not quite as clever as “ commit suicide on xanax , but this spam comment caught my eye. This one has been posted 3,600 times. Is this the product of a random word generator or does someone actually write this stuff? MORE

Network for Good recently published The 2008 Online Fundraising Survival Guide: 12 Winning Strategies to Survive & Thrive in a Down Economy. This 45-page guide includes sections on avoiding “the four most common fundraising mistakes, answering the four questions required to get a donation ( Why Me? Why Now? What For? MORE

The San Francisco Chronicle published an article about everywun.com , a new click-to-give site. The article makes this sound like a new idea, but The Hunger Site (and their later projects for breast cancer, children’s health, literacy, rain forest protection, and animal rescue) has been doing this since 1999. hope they’ll prove me wrong. MORE

Managing a blog, I wind up reviewing and deleting lots of spam comments. One of the most unusual had the text “commit suicide on Xanax. Googling that phrase yields 353,000 hits. Is this a selling point? MORE

Convio has released a new online fundraising benchmark report that is based on data from 600 of Convio’s nonprofit clients from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008. The average gift amount was unchanged at many organizations, with the average gift hovering around $67.50 in 2007 and 2008. read more. MORE

Ever wonder how to tell the gender of an unfamiliar first name? The PRSPCT-L listserve (for prospect researchers) had a discussion of resources for figuring this out and members provided the following suggestions: [link]. link]. link]. link]. MORE

The study compares adoption of social media between 2007 and 2008 by the admissions offices of all four-year accredited institutions in the United States. The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has just published Social Media and College Admissions: The First Longitudinal Study by Eric Mattson and Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D. MORE

SupportingAdvancement.com has published the results of their 2008 survey on how nonprofits are handling corporate matching gifts. 29% of respondents reported raising over $250,000 in matching gift income in 2008. 63% raised over $50,000. Nearly 50% reported that their matching gift income has increased over the past 3 years. Only 2.4% MORE

When I have the pleasure of talking with leaders in nonprofit organizations, two things come up again and again as critical to building a sustainable future: the need to achieve a broader and better view of their constituents; and the need to reach them in new and more meaningful ways. Anticipate. Personalize. Integrate. will all follow suit. MORE

Blackbaud has released a summary of early results from its analysis of 2008 online giving trends. Consistent with prior years, December online giving in the last month of 2008 quadrupled in size compared to prior months. The results come from 2,000 nonprofits using Blackbaud’s online fundraising tools. MORE

I’ve said it before–I’m not a software developer. I’m a hacker who got into this line of work via a circuitous route that never went through a comp sci class room. OK, that’s not true. took one C class at the UW and quit midway through. Part of the puzzle I had to learn from scratch was Testing. Shoot for 100% coverage. MORE

Blackbaud has released a summary of early results from its analysis of 2008 online giving trends. The results come from 2,000 nonprofits using Blackbaud’s online fundraising tools. They’ve found: Steady growth throughout the year. read more. MORE

Here's my original schedule post. Here's a few others' - Jeff, Elizabeth , Jamie. You'll notice there's a wee bit of repetition, as we're all bloggers and therefore all going to blogger-related stuff!! Here's Lindy's nice post for first timers. So find us, and we will take you under our collective YAP Hostess wings and introduce you to everyone. MORE

The findings included: 96% of respondents accept matching gifts (down from 99% in 2008), but only 60% actively ask individual donors to request matching gifts. SupportingAdvancement.com has published the results of their 2009 survey on how nonprofits are handling corporate matching gifts --their fourth such survey. It is available at [link]. MORE

Technorati: State of the Blogosphere 2008: "Blogs are Pervasive and Part of Our Daily LivesThere have been a number of studies aimed at understanding the size of the Blogosphere, yielding widely disparate estimates of both the number of blogs and blog readership. MORE

So what tools did you come to depend on in 2008? These span the range from tools I use every day or every week, to tools use more occasionally, but depend on. They also span the range of proprietary, SaaS, and Open Source. Open Source Tools. 1. WP is clean and easy, and virtually hassle-free. But now, here I am, and I’m impressed. MORE

Here’s the top 10 list for 2008: 1) Remember when 1 MB was alot ? wrote this post back in 2005, and it is the most popular in 2008! It’s actually because someone included it in a Wikipedia Article (no, it wasn’t me.). 2) Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants on July 27th. One of my frank and painful posts on the topic. MORE

Future Tense: January 4, 2008 Archives: "Twin Cities Rise! is one of the Minnesota nonprofits that has applied to participate in the F1 Overnight Website Challenge - set to begin on March 1. The event will pair ten teams of Web developers with 10 Minnesota nonprofit organizations. MORE

overall in 2008. The Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy's 2008 assessment of corporate gving (PDF) reports that corporate giving was down nearly 8% overall ($30.78 Last month we mentioned GivingUSA's annual assessment of individual giving which showed that donations from individuals had dropped 5.7% million compared to $33.19 MORE

Last month I posted a list of best practices for managing a database and discussed, among other things, protecting data on USB drives and laptops. recent discussion on the Information Systems Forum has suggested options for protecting USB drives. Else encrypted files may be lost when someone leaves the organization (or dies, for instance). MORE

Blackbaud has released a summary of early results from its analysis of 2008 online giving trends. Consistent with prior years, December online giving in the last month of 2008 quadrupled in size compared to prior months. The results come from 2,000 nonprofits using Blackbaud’s online fundraising tools.

Blackbaud has released a summary of early results from its analysis of 2008 online giving trends. The results come from 2,000 nonprofits using Blackbaud’s online fundraising tools. They’ve found: Steady growth throughout the year. read more.

Network for Good recently published The 2008 Online Fundraising Survival Guide: 12 Winning Strategies to Survive & Thrive in a Down Economy. This 45-page guide includes sections on avoiding “the four most common fundraising mistakes, answering the four questions required to get a donation ( Why Me? Why Now? What For?

Last month I posted a list of best practices for managing a database and discussed, among other things, protecting data on USB drives and laptops. recent discussion on the Information Systems Forum has suggested options for protecting USB drives. Else encrypted files may be lost when someone leaves the organization (or dies, for instance).

I’m fascinated by the ad for Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial exploratory campaign that’s been showing up on my Facebook page lately. The ad includes a photo of my friend Katie and says that Katie is a fan of Gavin Newsom. Her page confirms that she is a supporter of Gavin. And Katie’s photo appears above Gavin’s in the ad.

Microsoft issued a critical patch for Internet Explorer today, described as protection against a “remote code execution vulnerability. If your computer is set up for automatic updates, you should get the patch, well, automatically. You should also be able to run Windows Update (under Tools in IE). Or you can get the patch from [link].

In his article in the Chronicle of Philanthropy titled “ Top 10 Threats to Computer Systems Include Professors and Students , Jeffrey Young says. Today a growing number of network bad guys are professional criminals, and they’re looking to steal real money. You can (and should) read the whole article at [link].

Here are two new resources for surviving in tough times: The Chronicle of Philanthropy has compiled a collection of recent stories , discussions, and statistics about how charities deal with turbulent economic times. read more.

Not quite as clever as “ commit suicide on xanax , but this spam comment caught my eye. This one has been posted 3,600 times. Is this the product of a random word generator or does someone actually write this stuff?

Managing a blog, I wind up reviewing and deleting lots of spam comments. One of the most unusual had the text “commit suicide on Xanax. Googling that phrase yields 353,000 hits. Is this a selling point?

Ever wonder how to tell the gender of an unfamiliar first name? The PRSPCT-L listserve (for prospect researchers) had a discussion of resources for figuring this out and members provided the following suggestions: [link]. link]. link]. link].

Network for Good recently published The 2008 Online Fundraising Survival Guide: 12 Winning Strategies to Survive & Thrive in a Down Economy. This 45-page guide includes sections on avoiding “the four most common fundraising mistakes, answering the four questions required to get a donation ( Why Me? Why Now? What For?

Last month I posted a list of best practices for managing a database and discussed, among other things, protecting data on USB drives and laptops. recent discussion on the Information Systems Forum has suggested options for protecting USB drives. Else encrypted files may be lost when someone leaves the organization (or dies, for instance).

I’m fascinated by the ad for Gavin Newsom’s gubernatorial exploratory campaign that’s been showing up on my Facebook page lately. The ad includes a photo of my friend Katie and says that Katie is a fan of Gavin Newsom. Her page confirms that she is a supporter of Gavin. And Katie’s photo appears above Gavin’s in the ad.

The San Francisco Chronicle published an article about everywun.com , a new click-to-give site. The article makes this sound like a new idea, but The Hunger Site (and their later projects for breast cancer, children’s health, literacy, rain forest protection, and animal rescue) has been doing this since 1999. hope they’ll prove me wrong.

Convio has released a new online fundraising benchmark report that is based on data from 600 of Convio’s nonprofit clients from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2008. The average gift amount was unchanged at many organizations, with the average gift hovering around $67.50 in 2007 and 2008. read more.

The findings included: 96% of respondents accept matching gifts (down from 99% in 2008), but only 60% actively ask individual donors to request matching gifts. SupportingAdvancement.com has published the results of their 2009 survey on how nonprofits are handling corporate matching gifts --their fourth such survey. It is available at [link].

SupportingAdvancement.com has published the results of their 2008 survey on how nonprofits are handling corporate matching gifts. 29% of respondents reported raising over $250,000 in matching gift income in 2008. 63% raised over $50,000. Nearly 50% reported that their matching gift income has increased over the past 3 years. Only 2.4%

The study compares adoption of social media between 2007 and 2008 by the admissions offices of all four-year accredited institutions in the United States. The University of Massachusetts Dartmouth has just published Social Media and College Admissions: The First Longitudinal Study by Eric Mattson and Nora Ganim Barnes, Ph.D.

Here's my original schedule post. Here's a few others' - Jeff, Elizabeth , Jamie. You'll notice there's a wee bit of repetition, as we're all bloggers and therefore all going to blogger-related stuff!! Here's Lindy's nice post for first timers. So find us, and we will take you under our collective YAP Hostess wings and introduce you to everyone.

When I have the pleasure of talking with leaders in nonprofit organizations, two things come up again and again as critical to building a sustainable future: the need to achieve a broader and better view of their constituents; and the need to reach them in new and more meaningful ways. Anticipate. Personalize. Integrate. will all follow suit.

Technorati: State of the Blogosphere 2008: "Blogs are Pervasive and Part of Our Daily LivesThere have been a number of studies aimed at understanding the size of the Blogosphere, yielding widely disparate estimates of both the number of blogs and blog readership.

Here’s the top 10 list for 2008: 1) Remember when 1 MB was alot ? wrote this post back in 2005, and it is the most popular in 2008! It’s actually because someone included it in a Wikipedia Article (no, it wasn’t me.). 2) Carnival of Nonprofit Consultants on July 27th. One of my frank and painful posts on the topic.

So what tools did you come to depend on in 2008? These span the range from tools I use every day or every week, to tools use more occasionally, but depend on. They also span the range of proprietary, SaaS, and Open Source. Open Source Tools. 1. WP is clean and easy, and virtually hassle-free. But now, here I am, and I’m impressed.

Future Tense: January 4, 2008 Archives: "Twin Cities Rise! is one of the Minnesota nonprofits that has applied to participate in the F1 Overnight Website Challenge - set to begin on March 1. The event will pair ten teams of Web developers with 10 Minnesota nonprofit organizations.

I’ve said it before–I’m not a software developer. I’m a hacker who got into this line of work via a circuitous route that never went through a comp sci class room. OK, that’s not true. took one C class at the UW and quit midway through. Part of the puzzle I had to learn from scratch was Testing. Shoot for 100% coverage.